Crafting a custom Metallica pinball table with Linux, love

What does it take to create a pinball machine for the biggest metal band in …

We've explored what it takes to collect and refurbish existing pinball machines, but what if you want your own, custom game? Creating a one-of-a-kind pinball experience is a much different beast, but we were able to catch up with Wade Krause and Tanio Klyce, two men who put together a special table for some big pinball fans: Metallica.

"[Singer] James Hetfield saw the Hellacopters game that [artist Dirty Donny] and I made a few years ago and he wanted us to build him a custom game," Krause told Ars. That was the genesis of the project, but it takes real ingenuity to take an existing machine and modify it so that both the art and the play matches the feel of a band. Here's how they Krause and Klyce pulled it off.

Start with a good machine

First, "we brainstorm some ideas and find a suitable game," Krause explained. "We wanted a solid state game because of the sound, no dot matrix display because reprogramming it was just not in the budget." They decided to start with a game called Earthshaker.

"The shaker motor was a big plus on Earthshaker," said Krause. "The crowd roars when it is activated. Earthshaker is a fun game as well; playability is a big factor."

The entire game was then sanded, stripped, and refurbished to team member Dan Kramer's specifications, which were described to us as "tighter than factory." Dirty Donny— who in addition to having a great name has done art for Metallica in the past—then hand-painted the playing field before team member Rolph Britain added another layer of clear coat. Extra attention was paid to the back box of the machine, to make the art truly shine.

"The back box is extremely important to me on pinball machines. I am a huge fan of screened line-art on pinball and backglass animation," Krause told Ars. "Donny's art is perfect for pinball. To make the backglass really pop, I doubled the number of lights, added a CNC-cut light baffle board like on old EM games, had to modify the circuit board feeding the lights, and added 12 additional relays for the backbox light features which were programmed by Tanio [Klyce]. The amps glow red at times and the lights strobe METALLICA."

The software is just as important

We know the motor in Earthshaker allowed the game to have the effect of a roaring crowd, but the game had to have sound and music for that effect to have an impact. What good would a Metallica game be without the band's music? That's where Tanio Klyce came in.

"I started by researching the Williams System 11 architecture to learn how the main CPU communicates with the sound hardware," he said. The PinMame project had already reverse-engineered System 11, so he used that source code, a debugger, and the System 11 schematics to plan the music effects. A logic analyzer allowed him to make sure the schematics and emulation matched what was in the physical hardware in the shop.

"We wanted the audio playback to be CD quality (44KHz 16bit stereo), and we wanted to be able to play a lot of different songs, so I chose an embedded Linux system to run the audio," he explained. The other challenge? Pinball games are designed to be played roughly, and the team already had to deal with a shaking play field.

"I prototyped with a BeagleBoard, but moved to a Gumstix Overo Earth board for the final system because it is rated up to 90 C and is reported to have passed the 5 year MIL-STD-810F 514.5 military vibration test," said Klyce.

Here comes the science. "Since the Gumstix Linux board does not use 5 volts on board, I used an Arduino Mega board to interface to the Williams System 11 CPU board. The Arduino Mega watches the sound command signals and translates them into serial commands that are sent to the Linux board over USB."

Custom software on the board interprets the serial commands, keeps track of what's going on in the playfield, and makes sure the voiceovers, music, and crowd sounds all sync up. James Hetfield even recorded some new voice-overs to give the game more atmosphere.

Klyce found that creating sound design for a pinball machine was much harder than he had anticipated, and in many ways was more art than science. After the challenge of making sure the Linux system booted rapidly enough, he played the game for the first time. "My first pass at triggering sounds, voice, and music directly from the sound commands resulted in an unpleasant cacophony," he said. "My initial response was 'Oh, fuck!'"

He then went back and played the game, made notes, tweaked the sound, and repeated the process until things started to sound better. "After a lot of iterations, and a lot of great feedback from Dirty Donny and Wade Krause, the machine's audio now elicits more positive responses, such as 'Fuck, yeah!'"

Where's the machine now?

The game was commissioned by James Hetfield, but he was nice enough to allow the machine to be played at the Pacific Pinball Expo before being set up at Metallica Headquarters. The machine made waves.

A writer from Bit Mob took the machine for a spin. "I'm not sure if it fully comes across in the video, but this table is blisteringly fast—by far the fastest table at the expo. Fancy bump and catch tricks won't work well here. Hell, you're in trouble if you blink," the short review stated. "The color-changing, light-up plunger was a nice touch, as were the numerous songs from a little-known metal band called Metallica. I left the table feeling spent and satisfied, the metal riffs blaring from the speakers still ringing in my ears."

So how much does it cost to put something like this together? Krause gently refuses to talk specifics. "We did have a budget," he says. "Tanio Klyce, Dirty Donny, Dan Kramer, Rolph Brittain and myself put in many extra hours to take this to the next level. I have to say that this is the coolest project I've ever been involved with and thanks to those guys and James for making it happen."

42 Reader Comments

That does look like an extremely fast machine in the video, and definitely high up on the cool factor. I know a few diehard Metallica fans that would probably kill to play it. I would too, but because I'm more of a pinball fan than Metallica fan (I love Metallica, but not as much as pinball).

It is shamefull and insulting to the Linux community for using any of its code to pay omage to the voice and figure-head of the RIAA Mafia Group Inc. A very poor choice of band, indeed. Brainwashed? More like brain-dead.. The whole band!Your skills would have prevailed with a better choice than metalli-crap. Damn corporate sell-out band.

Originally posted by Daemon.ZOGG:It is shamefull and insulting to the Linux community for using any of its code to pay omage to the voice and figure-head of the RIAA Mafia Group Inc. A very poor choice of band, indeed. Brainwashed? More like brain-dead.. The whole band!Your skills would have prevailed with a better choice than metalli-crap. Damn corporate sell-out band.

Originally posted by Daemon.ZOGG:It is shamefull and insulting to the Linux community for using any of its code to pay omage to the voice and figure-head of the RIAA Mafia Group Inc. A very poor choice of band, indeed. Brainwashed? More like brain-dead.. The whole band!Your skills would have prevailed with a better choice than metalli-crap. Damn corporate sell-out band.

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Troll!

That looks awesome! Great job by those guys to make this.

Troll == !The choice of band to use for this is confusing to say the least. Metallica owning the rights to their music is meaningless, they were the figure heads. I myself have no grievance against Metallica, I personally grew out of their music a few years before the whole Napster debacle. Heh, I hope Metallica sues these guys for copyright infringement.

It's too bad that the pinball industry is where it is now, with only Stern making new machines and they all seem to be movie tie-ins. Video games are great and all, but don't measure up to the physical play of a well designed pinball machine.

It's been a headline style standard longer than any of us have been alive.

And Boo to all of you beating me to the joke copyright joke. I really wanted to write "After thanking them for their awesome work on making the pinball machine, Mr. Hetfield immediately served them with a lawsuit for not licensing their music for the game."

What does it take to create a pinball machine for the biggest metal band in the world? Custom art, Linux programming, and a whole lot of love. Here is the Metallica pinball machine.

Here, let me correct it for you:

What does it take to create a pinball machine for the biggest sellout sue-your-fans and kiss the corporation's ass metal band in the world? Custom art, Linux programming, and a whole lot of misplaced love. Here is the Metallica pinball machine.

Originally posted by CaribouLou:Technically, I don't think Metallica actually owns the rights to their music. Isn't it the record company's IP?

Metallica actually does own their music.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter_Gozinya:Troll == !The choice of band to use for this is confusing to say the least. Metallica owning the rights to their music is meaningless, they were the figure heads. I myself have no grievance against Metallica, I personally grew out of their music a few years before the whole Napster debacle. Heh, I hope Metallica sues these guys for copyright infringement.

Metallica commissioned the Pinball Machine. What are they going to do - sue themselves?

quote:

Originally posted by Nutrimentia:Jesus you are all are full of hate for no reason. The cool thing here is the tech, not the brand. That table is awesome indeed.

The Band's politics is very crappy at best. They forgot where they came from and that is sad.They do have some kickass music.Their latest stuff is much weker than it's been in a long time. Not my favorite and not very interesting.I won't ever spend another dime that directly benefits them.If Sandman comes on the radio I won't change the station.Lars is a giant Jack Hole!

I am a product of the 80's and therefore a video game whore - so any warm fuzzies towards pinball is not nostalgia but more a passing novelty.

The whole thing is cool - but not too impressive. This is about the same as walking onto a used car lot - buying an old car and refurbisheing it while doing custom Mods (oh yeah - and throwing Linux in the mix - big deal).

You may as well use Cliff Burton's dead body as an oil drill as many times as he's rolled over in his grave since this band abandoned their fans for fame. I bet Dave Mustaine is glad that he's no longer part of this shell of a metal band. Metallica was once where Linux is now, on the fringe, and enjoyed by a few die hard loyal fans. Now they are corporate stooges that have totally lost their edge. God help us if that translates into a similar fate for Linux down the road.

I dare say that it would have been better for all involved if Metallica had died in a tragic plane crash shortly before the black album was released. They would have died as metal legends rather than pathetic corporate sellouts. Oh well, I have found much better musicians to listed to anyway.

The machine isn't totally custom. The sounds, music, and art are. But the playfield is Earthshaker, a great game BTW. The player in the included movie isn't very good. The ball never got to the upper table.

1) Metallica (rather: Lars) had every right to do what he did wrt to napster, and someone would have done it anyway eventually. Get over it.

2) Lars himself has said he views things differently today (he even said he welcomed, yes, WELCOMED! the leak to Death Magnetic in France last year).

3) It's not your music to take and do what you please with any more than it is your right to plagiarize written work, steal a book or anything else! Besides, they've ALWAYS been open to trading their live music. They even had tapers section. They offer free downloads of old shows, and they offer very cheap priced current shows.

4) I'm not more of a troll than you whiners are - I at least am defending the band for something cool they did (hey, at least I know that no one is perfect).

5) I love Linux and I love their music, but that aside, what the hell does it have to do with a legal issue ?? Guess you think there's never been legal battles among the open source (and I use legal battles in more than one definition) community.

6) Everyone makes mistakes.

7) They're very nice people. But bet you've never had the opportunity to see that, since you're so closed minded and think thievery is ok ...

8) I'm willing to bet Metallica didn't choose Linux for the project anyway but the project developer did. You really think they know that much about Linux ?

etern, save your breath man. Anytime an article comes up on ARS with so much as a minor footnote about MetallicA, trolls like Daemon.ZOGG come out of the bushes en masse to whine about Napster and how "awful" their music is now. They were never MetallicA fans, they just pretend they were so they can be indignant.

1) Metallica (rather: Lars) had every right to do what he did wrt to napster, and someone would have done it anyway eventually. Get over it.

2) Lars himself has said he views things differently today (he even said he welcomed, yes, WELCOMED! the leak to Death Magnetic in France last year).

3) It's not your music to take and do what you please with any more than it is your right to plagiarize written work, steal a book or anything else! Besides, they've ALWAYS been open to trading their live music. They even had tapers section. They offer free downloads of old shows, and they offer very cheap priced current shows.

4) I'm not more of a troll than you whiners are - I at least am defending the band for something cool they did (hey, at least I know that no one is perfect).

5) I love Linux and I love their music, but that aside, what the hell does it have to do with a legal issue ?? Guess you think there's never been legal battles among the open source (and I use legal battles in more than one definition) community.

6) Everyone makes mistakes.

7) They're very nice people. But bet you've never had the opportunity to see that, since you're so closed minded and think thievery is ok ...

8) I'm willing to bet Metallica didn't choose Linux for the project anyway but the project developer did. You really think they know that much about Linux ?

WOW! The amount of labor, art, sound and technical expertise that went in to this is insane. What an undertaking - great work! (my guess is $100k+)

I'm a fan of metal and pinball. Metallica issues aside. I'd much rather play this than the Movie and TV-licensed tables coming out now (24, CSI, Shrek?). I'd love to get a chance to play a game with metal riffs blaring instead of Jack Bauer's stupid catch phrases repeated over and over.